Ben Hall will announce whether he’s running for mayor “very soon”

Former City Attorney Ben Hall, long rumored to be considering a run for mayor, said Tuesday that “It’s more likely than not” that he will run for mayor next year.

Hall has been most prominent recently as the attorney for Chad Holley. The black teenager was fleeing the scene of a burglary before falling over the hood of a police car, rolling onto his stomach and placing his hands behind his head in an incident captured on surveillance video. Then the video appears to show several Houston police officers stomping, kicking and punching the prostrate teenager. He is also the attorney for ousted county Housing Authority chief Guy Rankin.

Ben Hall

Hall bought a home in the Memorial area in February. Hall insisted that his previous home had a Houston address that qualified him to run for mayor, but that address had apparently been a source of some controversy. Hall said part of his thinking for the home purchase was he “did not want anybody complaining about that (residency) issue even though we formerly complied with the law.”

No well-funded or well-known candidates challenged Mayor Annise Parker‘s re-election in 2011. Yet she barely avoided a runoff, winning less than 51 percent of the vote in a six-candidate field. Before the field was formalized in August 2011, Hall’s name had been on most observers’ short list of serious potential contenders.

Hall’s personal wealth, his name ID and his presumptive ability as a black candidate to do well among black voters could all contribute to a strong candidacy signaling that Parker will not get a free ride to a third and final term. Hall is a Harvard-trained lawyer and ordained minister.

“We thought that we were going to announce tomorrow, but we’re not,” Hall said. “We will be making an announcement very soon about my intentions.” Hall said the announcement would come before the end of the year.